Vladimir Tomko, Independent Expert

Current State of Cryptogame Market

(White Nights Conference Prague 2018)
The official conference website — http://wnconf.com

Transcript

1. Current State of Cryptogame Market Independent Game Producer CMO, Forty Seven Vladimir Tomko
2. What are cryptogames? –Games that utilise blockchain? –Games that accept cryptocurrencies as Payment Methods? –Games that can technically be played in blockchain using smart contracts and without any UI? –Games that offer players ownership of their virtual assets and stores them in Blockchain?
3. Values of modern cryptogames 100% player-owned assets Tradable content (in-game and external) Code transparency
4. Cryptogame Market
5. How it all started? 2 Jun 2017 – CryptoPunks came out – Scratched the surface of today’s idea of cryptogames – Had positive ROI* – Was moderately popular among crypto enthusiasts 28 Nov 2017 – CryptoKitties came out – High quality product – Huge virality – Made Ethereum network lag – Became a grossing success story and established a new trend
6. Games 34+ playable games (some are still in alpha/beta) 29+ games announced and in development ?unannounced, but in development Around 16 games make money Good 33% Mediocre 30% Poor 37% Quality:
7. Common features –Blockchain: majority utilise Ethereum blockchain and ERC-721 token standard –Genre: Collectable games – cats, dogs, pets, alpacas, celebrities, lands, planets, whatever you want. –Development: most copy-paste-and-edit CryptoKitties smart contracts –Time to market: very fast (1-2 months) –Quality: usually poor or mediocre
8. Common features • Payment methods: majority use Metamask (Ethereum wallet that comes as Chrome and Firefox extensions) • Refunds: no refunds • Socialisation: almost absent • Game mechanic variety: very poor • Retention: mostly profit-driven • Paying users: 100%
9. Common features Most of the games, are not games at all, but more of a painting auctions
10. Audience Gamers, women 35-45? Nope: –Desktop users –Cryptocurrency enthusiasts –ICO investors –Traders –Mostly males, 25+ –Distributed geo
11. Audience Maximum audience reach (approx.): 10M users Real audience reach: unknown, probably around 2M users
12. Problems and Opportunities
13. Problems Only one proven model – CryptoKitties’ version of collectable game Most of the current games are not playable on mobile devices – Metamask works only on Desktop – It is generally a lot more confusing to transfer funds to cryptocurrency wallet on mobile than it is on desktop Metamask is available only on: – Google Chrome – Mozilla Firefox
14. Problems –App Store guidelines regarding payments prohibit using non-in- app payment methods as main solutions for unlocking content and buying in-game merchandise (paragraphs 3.1.1, 3.1.3, 3.1.4) –Cryptogames is not a regulated market yet, so it is prone to scams and Ponzi schemes –Ethereum Blockchain has it’s weak points. You can’t store everything there, it will get too big very fast. Writing to blockchain is not free.
15. Problems –Blockchain developers usually are very expensive –Cryptogames are targeting the same users as ICO projects (Initial Coin Offerings) do. Every service around ICO is overpriced at the moment. –Copyrights may and are getting violated.
16. Traffic There are currently no cryptogame platforms with traffic that could feature your product – there is no free traffic around
17. Traffic Who has the traffic: – Facebook and Instagram (temp. banned crypto-related ads) – Google AdWords – Twitter Ads – CPA networks, crypto-related (e.g. Advendor) – Crypto Ad-networks (e.g. Cointraffic) – ICO listings – Crypto related media (e.g. Cointelegraph) – Bitcointalk (ads and ANN posts) – Telegram (ads in groups/channels, invite-spam) – Reddit (native ads in crypto subreddits) – Twitter/YouTube influencers (especially YouTubers)
18. Traffic Cryptocurrency-themed quality traffic is very expensive: • USD 3-4 CPC on Facebook is a common price • USD 7 000-10 000 for an article on popular crypto-related media • USD 20-30 CPM is normal price on popular media resources
19. Traffic – Virality Writing good articles on various free resources can bring your game some visibility. Medium – has a featured section for each category. Getting there can attract new users Steemit – has strong cryptocurrency community and engaged users Golos – same as Steemit but of a lesser scale and for Russian audience Bitcointalk – good bounty campaign with your game assets as bounties can do some serious work
20. Who has the edge? Which teams have advantage if to start developing a cryptogame right now? Teams that: –Have experience in creating web/social games –Can market their product fast –Have experience in blockchain development –Have access to crypto-related traffic
21. Opportunities The market is growing, so there are a lot of opportunities not only for game developers, but for infrastructure elements like: –“Pokedex’es” for popular cryptogames (e.g. CryptoKittydex) –Cryptogaming platforms (e.g. Xarcade) –Crypto-assets trading services (e.g. OpenSea)
22. Opportunities –Cryptogaming media (e.g. CryptoGamer); –Crypto “AppAnnies” (e.g. CryptoKitties Sales, Dapp Radar); –Cryptogaming listings/aggregators/rating services (e.g. Tokenized.Games)
23. Some numbers
24. PixelPunks Current lifetime: 8.5 months Total value of Punks Sold: 610.4 ETH ($534 862) Their share: no commission
25. CryptoKitties Current lifetime: 2.5 months Total value of Kitties Sold: 38 400.76 ETH ($ 20 001 657) Their share: Commissions: $750 062 Gen0 cats: $517 196 Total earned: $1 267 258
26. CryptoKitties 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 11.23.17 11.25.17 11.27.17 11.29.17 12.1.17 12.3.17 12.5.17 12.7.17 12.9.17 12.11.17 12.13.17 12.15.17 12.17.17 12.19.17 12.21.17 12.23.17 12.25.17 12.27.17 12.29.17 12.31.17 1.2.18 1.4.18 1.6.18 1.8.18 1.10.18 1.12.18 1.14.18 1.16.18 1.18.18 1.20.18 1.22.18 1.24.18 1.26.18 1.28.18 1.30.18 2.1.18 2.3.18 Turnover, ETH (Sales Smart Contract) Turnover, ETH
27. CryptoCelebrities Current lifetime: 25 days Trade volume (7d): 1 160.42 ETH ($ 1 015 507) Earned (7d): $60 930
28. CryptoCelebrities 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 Turnover, ETH (Sales Smart Contract) Turnover, ETH
29. Parsec Frontiers Funds gathered for development: 564.16 ETH ($493 711) 1 321 000 NOK ($165 891) Total: $659 602
30. What about me ?
31. Blockchain Cuties
32. Thank you for attention! Questions? vladimir.tomko@gmail.co m